The invention relates generally to power-driven conveyors and in particular to article-diverting belt conveyors.
Diverting conveyors, such as shoe sorters, are used to divert articles across the width of a conveyor as the conveyor transports the articles in a conveying direction. Typical shoe sorters include article-pushing elements called shoes that are driven laterally across the conveyor to push articles off one or both sides of the conveyor to one or more discharges. Slat conveyors and modular conveyor belts are used as platforms for the shoes, which ride in tracks extending across the widths of the slats or belt modules. The shoes are conventionally block-shaped with depending structural elements that keep the shoes in the tracks and serve as cam followers that extend below to be guided by carryway guides that control the lateral positions of the shoes. In applications where the friction between the bottoms of heavy conveyed articles and the top surface of the conveyor is high, pusher-type shoes can damage the contact sides of the articles or cause their bottoms to be marred. Or if the shoe's track does not extend close enough to a side of the conveyor belt, small articles meant to be sorted off the side can be stranded.